From the archive: The electric light panic

To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian: Sir, As panics appear to be the craze of the day, it might perhaps be well if the owners of shares in gas companies would pause and inquire, in preference to disposing of their property in frantic haste and at a ruinous loss.

Fortified by the opinion of an eminent scientific friend, I venture to assert that Mr. Edison's statement as to what his patent will effect are a specimen of "bunkum". In his boastful letter, Mr. Edison says that electric light can, under his patent, be used in an ordinary gas chandelier – a more than doubtful statement as the light is produced between two pieces of carbon which burn away with some rapidity.

The space has to be regulated with considerable nicety, or the light is extinguished. Mr. Edison also totally ignores what has been done by other inventors with the electric light. He says it can be produced at one fourth the cost of coal gas but, supposing this to be true, it may be well to remember that in America the price of gas is four times as great as it is here, and in Paris it costs twice as much.

That the superb electric light will eventually be used for lighting large halls, public squares, railway stations, and street lamps is pretty certain; but it is highly improbable, though not impossible, that it can be rendered available for illuminating private houses, and the holders of valuable shares in gas companies will do well to retain them and their equanimity.

I am, &c. STUDENT, Manchester.

Manchester City Council. The Gas Committee and the electric light. Mr. Alderman Bennett asked whether it would not be wise, seeing that discussion was going on regarding the electric light–(hear, hear)–to pause a little in their expenditure. (Hear, hear.)

He did not know how they might be able to do this; but if the Committee had already entered into contracts which could not be suspended, or if they were of opinion that this commotion if he might so call it, about the electric light would end in moonshine, they (the Committee) would see that it was not only the Gas Committee, but the Improvement Committee and the citizens generally, who would suffer.

The Improvement Committee were thankful for £52,000 from the Gas Committee during the past year. Clearly if electric light was generally adopted, £50,000 a year would no longer be available for improvement purposes and perhaps they would have a dead weight hanging upon them for years.

[Edison produced the long-lasting bulb a year later, according to Wikipedia].

These archive extracts are compiled by John Ezard: john.ezard@guardian.co.uk

Sign up for the Guardian Today

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.

Historic articles from the Guardian archive, compiled by the Guardian research and information department (follow us on Twitter @guardianlibrary). For further coverage from the past, take a look at the Guardian & Observer digital archive, which contains every issue of both newspapers from their debut to 2000 - 1.2m items, fully searchable and viewable online